A brilliantly written Twitter story by @ramkid provided a rare burst of inspiration to write this backstory for his characters – first read the original Twory here. The most pleasurable part of the writing was the opportunity to revisit, in the story, my hometown, Bombay.
Mohan Bapat quickened his step, breaking into a run as he passed the Eros theater, jumping over a puddle to get to the footbridge that would take him into Churchgate station. The skies over South Bombay had darkened, and the steady drizzle that he had watched all day through the windows of Mantralaya, from his desk at work, had now become the standard monsoon downpour. Mohan prayed that the railway tracks wouldn’t flood, and bring the trains to a halt before his 6.15 Borivli fast left the station. Today, as he did every day, he wanted to get home early enough to eat dinner with Shraddha, before she went to sleep – that precious hour he spent with her was all that he lived for now, each day.
The pressing multitude of commuters took him towards platform 4 in Churchgate even without Mohan having to make any effort. He fought his way to the edge, as usual, ready to latch on to the door handle as the train pulled in to the platform, snaking his way through the competing crush to that holy grail – the window seat facing in the northward direction, that would make his daily commute bearable.
Mohan settled back in the seat as the train pulled out of Churchgate and closed his eyes as his thoughts wandered back to the familiar groove that they had circled around each day at this time. He knew that he never ever stopped thinking about Shraddha, his 10-year old daughter, even when he was working at his job as a clerk in the Treasury department of the Government of Maharashtra. His memories of holding her in his arms as an infant, and the rush of pride and joy he had felt, still filled his heart and brought a quick tear to his eyes. As he had watched her grow, each day had been filled with the same joy – Mohan and Suman, his wife, had looked at each other daily and wondered how they had been so fortunate, to be blessed with this bundle of happiness.
Shraddha was a precocious child, a quick learner and eager to absorb new ideas each day. She was her teachers’ pet, and effortlessly became the first ranker in each of her classes. Shraddha outgrew the children’s books that were in her meagerly equipped school library, and voraciously consumed whatever she could lay her hands on. Even as a 3rd grader, Mohan was amazed at how she prattled away in fluent English, and left him bemused, wanting to ask her to slow down so he could understand her. He remembered how he had often made the detour on his way back from work, browsing the footpath bookshops around Fountain, looking for all the Harry Potter books that she wanted to read. For her 9th birthday, he had saved up for months to buy her the Scrabble set, which still occupied a prime spot on their bookshelf at home.
Thinking about that 9th birthday brought a familiar pang and Mohan broke out in a sweat, even as a cool breeze wafted in through the window of the fast train. That was the day that the first symptoms reared up in an ugly surprise – Shraddha complained that she was feeling sick, all through the long journey home on the 81 bus from Siddhi vinayak temple, where they had gone on her birthday. The next day, the sight of her lying, spent and tired on her bed worried Suman enough that she had taken Shraddha herself to the doctor. The next month had been a blur – the multiple appointments, then the tests at Nanavati hospital and then, the terrifying diagnosis that he could hardly comprehend – cancer! Shraddha had been brave throughout, never complaining while they took her to one doctor after another, desperately hoping for someone to provide a ray of hope, and some piece of news that would bring the rosy hue back to her cheeks.
Mohan sat up with a start as he felt the train pulling out of a station, and one look out of the window was enough to confirm that this was Goregaon, giving him just enough time to fight his way to the door and exit at Malad. The rain poured steadily down as he came out of the station and made his way to the BEST stop, and the crowd of people waiting to catch already-delayed buses swelled over the sidewalk onto the flooded street. He struggled silently with a familiar dilemma, and decided to splurge on the 30 Rs. fare for the auto-rickshaw, so he could get home quickly.
‘Baba! Baba!’ – as she did every day, Shraddha greeted him at the door. Mohan Bapat gathered her up in his arms and carried her frail form to the dining table. Their modest 1-BHK flat was Suman’s pride, lovingly decorated and kept spotlessly clean. Mohan sat down with Shraddha in his lap, just as he would do when she was a much younger baby, and listened to her excited recounting of the day’s events. Her frequent bouts of nausea and fatigue made it impossible for her to go back to school, but they had bravely persevered with her home schooling. After completing her homework, Shraddha, still an avid reader, would curl up with a book or play word games on her cellphone.
Today, too, the first thing she did was show her father her score on Spelling Bee, the word game on the NYTimes app. Every day, as Suman tried to get her to take the many pills of different shapes and colors that had become her daily regimen, they had found that one way to make it palatable was to link that to every new word she discovered – one word, one pill swallowed, until all of them were done.
Earlier that year, Mohan’s cousin, Shreeram had visited them. He lived in New Jersey and had made the trip to Bombay specifically to see Shraddha, his favorite niece, after he had heard of her diagnosis. He had introduced Shraddha to the word game, telling her how he used that as the way to pass the time on his commute from Jersey City to W 41st street in the city. He had even paid for their subscription to the game on the NYTimes website with his credit card when he saw how much Shraddha enjoyed matching her wits against the game. Ever since, Shraddha had daily charted her progress, counting the number of words in her list, glowing with pride when she went from stage to stage – the screen showing the rankings – Nice, Great or Amazing. The one level that she had never reached was the last one – Genius. Each day, Shraddha kept trying to get there, furiously trying out words, right until 12.30 pm IST – when the day’s puzzle disappeared from the site and a new one took its place.
Later that night, after Shraddha had fallen asleep, Suman and Mohan wordlessly attempted to take stock of the week. Tomorrow was Saturday, when they had to take Shraddha again to the Tata Hospital for her chemotherapy sessions, and the scans that would tell them how much the disease had progressed. That required a great deal of planning and preparation – packing a change of clothes for Shraddha, cooking and packing a meal for all three of them, and making sure that they forgot none of the medical reports and forms that they would need to navigate the bureaucracy and the crowds in the hospital. They knew that they would come back exhausted the next evening, carrying their exhausted darling in their arms, still wondering if their ordeal was ever going to end. As always, Mohan tried to stay positive and think ahead, to the day after tomorrow, Sunday, when he could spend all day at home with his daughter, catering to her every whim, bathing her and feeding her and helping her play the Spelling Bee.
Sunday morning did come, bright and sunny. The rains had stopped, and the fresh morning air in Bombay portended a rare balmy, mild day of the kind that had become increasingly rare. Mohan woke early, and hurried to finish his morning chores so that he could be ready when Shraddha woke from her night of sedated exhaustion. He watched as Suman prepared the simple and tasty breakfast of poha, just the way Shraddha liked it. He said a quick prayer that she wouldn’t be too weak to eat it, and pushed away the ominous thoughts about what the future held for his darling daughter.
Soon, Shraddha was again engrossed in her favorite game on her cellphone. Mohan felt her infectious excitement as she proudly took a screenshot at each stage – Good, then Solid, to Nice and then Great! After a while, though, when it was time for her to take her pills, her mood soured. She kept trying words that she thought would win her the big points, but the screen would say ‘Not in word list’. Mohan would sit patiently next to her, waiting for her to turn to him, so he could place the next pill in her mouth, but she would turn away.
“But, Baba – I know this is a word… Algol – it is a computer language!” she wailed. “Why is this stupid game telling me ‘Not in word list’?”
Mohan fought back tears as he saw her frustrated tears. He tried to help, but his vocabulary had already reached its limit. Soon, though, Shraddha found success with a string of 4-letter words, each of them adding a point, and she felt really happy. She was sure that she was going to get to that ‘Genius’ stage today, for the first time!
Then, she was stuck. There was just one more pill for her to swallow, but Shraddha kept turning away her face. She needed one more word, just one more point. For all her precocious intelligence, she was still a baby, and was desperate in her frustration.
She tried again – G-A-O-L.
Not in word list.
“Baba – this is unfair! I know that this is a good word. It’s the old spelling for JAIL. I know it!” she wailed again. She threw away her cellphone in anger, and curled up on the sofa. Mohan went and sat next to her, and tried to get her to take her last pill. Shraddha refused, her face streaked with tears, and dozed off tiredly.
He looked at his watch and saw that it was 11 am. In another hour and a half, that day’s puzzle would disappear from the site, and he would have to console Shraddha, who would be bitterly disappointed again. He could feel his heart break, just thinking of her teary face when she would wake from her nap. He had to do something…
He got up quietly and went to the small balcony. He did a quick calculation – it would be, what, 2 am in the middle of the night in Jersey City. He went ahead anyway as he launched Whatsapp and called Shreeram, who was shocked and confused to be called at that time. His first thought was that this was the bad news that he had dreaded, about Shraddha. Mohan quickly reassured him, but still sobbed as he described his frustration at not being able to help Shraddha. Her illness, her fatigue and nausea caused by the chemo, his own feelings of helplessness merged as one with Shraddha’s frustration at the word game. Shreeram listened patiently, and tried to console Mohan. He tried to calm him down by asking him to describe the game she was playing – and Mohan told him about GAOL, and how that wasn’t accepted by the game.
Shreeram immediately felt a pang of sympathy with his niece. He had played the game earlier that day, and he had tried ‘GAOL’ too – and was disappointed when it wasn’t accepted as a word. Then, he thought of something else…
“Wait, Mohan – I just thought of something….”
Shreeram was stuttering with excitement. He struggled to get his words out… “John!”
“Who is John?”, Mohan asked, puzzled.
“John is the guy I meet each morning when we buy a bagel on the street outside the New York Times building, where I work. He works there, and he told me just last month, that he actually edits the ‘Spelling Bee’ puzzle!”, Shreeram was almost shouting in excitement.
“But.. but.. It’s 2 am in the morning there”, said Mohan.
“That’s ok… John is a very nice guy. I am going to call him now. He can do this – he can make it accept the word GAOL… I am sure of it. What’s the harm in trying? If we can just make Shraddha happy for one day?” Shreeram was determined. He hung up without waiting for Mohan to respond.
For the next hour, Mohan paced restlessly from the living room to the balcony. Shraddha woke up, and still refused to take her pills. She refused to eat her lunch too. Mohan watched miserably, unable to find any words to make her feel better.
It was 12.25 pm, when the phone rang. Shreeram was breathless with excitement. “Bapat … tell her to do this, quickly. Try that word again, now!” and hung up.
Mohan rushed in and told Shraddha, “Try that word again, baby. Maybe it wasn’t typed properly before”.
Shraddha picked up her cellphone and feverishly typed the word again. G-A-O-L. Enter. The screen changed, and the picture of the bee filled the screen. Genius!
Shraddha jumped up and down on the sofa in excitement and joy. Mohan was caught up in the excitement too, and lifted her up in his arms and whirled her around. He sat down and now, when he asked her to take her pill, she did, and ate her lunch too. Quickly, before the day’s puzzle disappeared, they took that invaluable screenshot. Now, she would have that every day to look at – Genius!
A whole week passed after the excitement of that Sunday. It was now Sunday morning again, and Mohan called Shreeram again, early in the morning, when it was still evening in New Jersey. He couldn’t hide the excitement in his voice, and Shreeram could see him smiling on the WhatsApp screen, something he hadn’t seen for several months.
“Shreeram – you aren’t going to believe this”, Mohan was almost jumping. “We just got a call from the doctor in Tata Hospital. It’s Sunday morning, but he still called to give us the results of the scan! Shraddha’s tests are clear – he says the cancer is in remission! Our baby is going to be all right!”, Mohan was sobbing by now.
“And… and… there’s something else I have to tell you. Every day in the last week, Shraddha solved the puzzle and got to Genius every day. Every day! And this morning, guess what… she read somewhere that even after that level, you can keep guessing words. So today, she went beyond the Genius level! And guess what that level is, when you get all the words in the puzzle”
“Queen Bee!”